CPU bound games?

[Tacitus]

What percentage of modern, AAA titles would you say are CPU rather than GPU bound games. I ask because factoring an i5 4670k into my build would cost me around £40 extra, and that's quite significant to me.

 

I can really only think of Skyrim (which I do like and want to play again), but surely when modded the shit out of becomes GPU bound eventually?

[crystal6tak]

I think most often when a game is cpu bound, it's that the game is not optimized for multiple cores. Going from the top of my head, Planetside 2, Minecraft, Hawken, Arma 3 comes to mind as some of the games that are not multicore friendly. There are games that do utilizes multiple cores while still being cpu intensive. Battlefield 3 Multiplayer for example comes to mind.

 

A cpu like a the i5 4670k is an excellent choice for playing games. It's single thread performance makes up for the non multi core friendly games while still being rock solid for multi core friendly games. And if the single core performance is not enough, overclock is still an option to boost the already excellent single thread performance.

 

I think it's best for you to just search up games that you're interested in and find cpu benchmarks for them. Use those benchmarks to see if the 4670k is worth it or not.

[Verne]

MMOs and other big online games are generally more CPU intensive while single-player games tend to be more GPU bound.

[totjup5]

Planetside, Arma, Dayz, most mmos, and most bad ports.

[Sharkyx1]

Watch dogs, assassins creed, titanfall,

[razor767]

Some strategy games are CPU bound (Civ 5, Total War: Rome II etc).

[Samfisher]

Definitely Skyrim up to a certain point.  Watch_Dogs apparently, and most Battlefields in multiplayer.  In general, many open-world games are CPU-bound in some manner.

[Tacitus]

I think most often when a game is cpu bound, it's that the game is not optimized for multiple cores. Going from the top of my head, Planetside 2, Minecraft, Hawken, Arma 3 comes to mind as some of the games that are not multicore friendly. There are games that do utilizes multiple cores while still being cpu intensive. Battlefield 3 Multiplayer for example comes to mind.

 

A cpu like a the i5 4670k is an excellent choice for playing games. It's single thread performance makes up for the non multi core friendly games while still being rock solid for multi core friendly games. And if the single core performance is not enough, overclock is still an option to boost the already excellent single thread performance.

 

I think it's best for you to just search up games that you're interested in and find cpu benchmarks for them. Use those benchmarks to see if the 4670k is worth it or not.

 

 

MMOs and other big online games are generally more CPU intensive while single-player games tend to be more GPU bound.

 

 

Planetside, Arma, Dayz, most mmos, and most bad ports.

 

 

Watch dogs, assassins creed, titanfall,

 

 

Some strategy games are CPU bound (Civ 5, Total War: Rome II etc).

 

 

Definitely Skyrim up to a certain point.  Watch_Dogs apparently, and most Battlefields in multiplayer.  In general, many open-world games are CPU-bound in some manner.

 

I thank you all for your replies, and apologise that it has taken me so long to respond.

 

For the most part, these games are ones I'm not interested in, exceptions being Skyrim (which I've already played the shit out of and probably won't play too much in the future) and Total War: Rome II which I'm yet to play and am saving for when I get my new PC, but I look forward to that a lot.

 

I'm not a *huge* gamer, but I really would like to play the Witcher 2 again before W3 comes out, as well as things like GTA V and AC5 if it's a big step up over AC4 in terms of mechanics, but given Ubisofts generally poor ports then I imagine I'd benefit from screwing more power out of the CPU, it's just hard knowing how big a difference this will make.

 

I'll take a look into CPU benchmarks, if anyone has anything to add then please do

 

Thanks guys

[2mbur2n]

Starcraft II is another one that is heavily reliant upon the CPU.

 

My advice is to get the better CPU beacuse it will likely last you several GPU refreshes if you should choose to upgrade.

[Pugs501]

Half-Life!

Jk

 

But really Skyrim, Watch_Dogs, and most Battlefields

[Timmy-P]

Half-Life!

Jk

Actually, Source (and GoldSrc to an extent) is CPU-bound (but not intensive) as an engine as a whole.  This includes CS:GO, TF2, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Dota, and Titanfall.  Yes, Titanfall.

[Gontier]

Guild Wars 2 is extremely CPU bound (especially world versus world battles). It definitely has a larger benefit from more CPU power compared to GPU power, and quite a lot of people have complained about this. 

[Pugs501]

Actually, Source (and GoldSrc to an extent) is CPU-bound (but not intensive) as an engine as a whole. This includes CS:GO, TF2, Half-Life, Left 4 Dead, Dota, and Titanfall. Yes, Titanfall.

Really? I was just making a joke!

[themaniac]

minecraft is a cpu bound game

[CraigWB]

You may have explained part of our problems.   

 

My son and I just did our first build ever a few weeks ago, 600W, Samsung 120GB SSD, z97 mobo (LGA 1150) one PCI-e 16x slot, 4 GB RAM.  Obviously the intention was to get it going then upgrade as we got more confident we knew what we were doing.

 

Our CPU was an inexpensive G3258: dual core 3.2GHz Pentium.  (Actually, it benches better than some old i7s do, so it isn't as lame as it sounds.)  Planning on a quad core i5 soon, but not yet. 

As originally configured, he got about 20-40 FPS on Minecraft.  

 

Then this week we got the GTX 970 (ACX 2.0, sounds nice and quiet so far), popped it in... and *still* got 20-40 FPS on Minecraft.  ??

(His Titanfall speed picked up, he tells me, but no numbers on that.)  (Yes, we have the DVI-I cable plugged into the GPU and not the mobo.  We uninstalled the onboard graphics after putting in the new GPU board.)

 

Sounds like we need to move up to the i5 next?  That is, for Minecraft, maybe the GPU doesn't matter at all?  

Or is there some OTHER newby mistake we might be making? 

 

 

 

Thanks in advance!

[Timmy-P]

Really? I was just making a joke!

Well, the engine was made in the age where the CPU was more important to games than the GPU,  and as time went on the GPU overall increased in power relative to the CPU.